Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Adventures On The Marketplace

My journey to “affordable”insurance continues. After giving HHS the benefit of the doubt that these “glitches” were going to be fixed, I decided to return to www.healthcare.gov and continue the process of signing up. After getting back into the system (6 failed attempts first) I clicked on ENROLL and...error message!

So, I called the 800 number and got a very friendly voice named Mackenzie. Mackenzie was very helpful. She told me that there are these things called “glitches” that keep happening because too many people are getting on the site. She said: “2.5 people are on it at a time and the site keeps having problems.” Of course I asked her what types of problems to which she promptly replied “It’s not recognizing passwords, email addresses, usernames, and stuff like that.”

At that point I kindly told her thanks and asked one last question – How bad do you hate your job right now? The response sums up the whole marketplace experience.

“Oh, it’s okay. I really wish we could help somebody. The problem with calling us to help enroll is that we are looking at the same system you are. When you can’t log in neither can we. I like that you have been nice. Many callers are angry, yelling profanity at me.” I said, it’s not your fault. Did you share with them that people can’t start coverage until January 1st? Her reply: “No, no, you can start insurance coverage on November 1st as long as we have your application done by October 15th. If it is after the 15th then you don’t get insurance until the following month. You know, December.”